History, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts.

J. L. BELL is a Massachusetts writer who specializes in (among other things) the start of the American Revolution in and around Boston. He is particularly interested in the experiences of children in 1765-75. He has published scholarly papers and popular articles for both children and adults. He was consultant for an episode of History Detectives, and contributed to a display at Minute Man National Historic Park.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

He provided a deposition for Boston’s official report on the event, titled A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre.

A polished version of Palmes’s inquest testimony, written in the week after the shootings, appeared in A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance at Boston, printed in London in response to the Short Narrative. Palmes’s original text was broken up into sentences with standardized punctuation, but only one small detail was added.

notes from special prosecutor Robert Treat Paine, also published in the Adams Legal Papers.

Palmes’s own statement of what he’d said about hearing an order to fire, as published in the 25 Mar 1771 Boston Gazette and reprinted in York’s book.

Palmes formatted his account in question-and-answer form, like the recently published transcript of the soldiers’ trial, but that text also broke off for the note “as per Narrative,” referring to the Boston report. Thus, it’s unclear whether those questions and answers were really based on contemporaneous records or if Palmes wrote out what he remembered (or wanted to remember) months later. He didn’t present his whole testimony, just the portion about whether Preston might have ordered his men to shoot into the crowd.

As for the soldiers’s trial, the situation is even more complicated. Palmes’s testimony survives in four forms:

Palmes’s own version, published in the 25 Mar 1771 Boston Gazette, with specific complaints about Hodgson’s accuracy.

There’s an old saying that a person with one watch always knows what time it is, and a person with two watches never does. A historian with one source can report what people said; a historian with two sources can’t.